Resist Evil Thoughts
I received
another important truth as a young man in a meeting in the tabernacle when
President David O. McKay was giving
one of his memorable
addresses. In his talk he made the statement,
"Sow a thought,
reap an act, sow an act, reap a habit, Sow a habit, reap a character, sow a
character, reap an eternal destiny."
Then he
proceeded to explain that no one ever commits any sin or wrongdoing unless they
have thought about it ahead of time;
and it is the mulling
over or retaining in our minds the evil thoughts that ultimately result in our
carrying them out. This statement
worried me because my
friends would occasionally tell dirty jokes, and the ideas expressed would
stick in my mind and I would mull them over. I did not want
to do the things that they suggested, remembering that they were contrary to
the will of the Lord. Again, having an
understanding father was a real asset to me because, as I explained my concerns
to him, he told me that it needn't be a problem if I
recognized that you cannot think of two different things at the same time. He
said that while we can't keep out of our sight and
hearing things that are evil, we can kick them out of our minds if we are
willing to think of something else to displace them, like
being in some special place doing the kind of thing we would most rather be
doing at that particular time. I decided to test
this. The next time such a thought was planted in my mind, I began to think of
being carried in an airplane over
- George Hill III
2nd Quorum of Seventy